"jan siepelstad" wrote in message
...
Isn't it possible to install a rented belt-conveyor?

"Ivan Vegvary" wrote in message
news:CBSLh.11343$el3.1563@trndny01...
Sorry, also cross posted to alt.home.repair



Need to dig out crawl space. Approximately 30' by 50' area. At present
it is about 4" deep. Want to dig down to 42" and lay down a moisture
barrier, put in vents, level house etc. Can't go any deeper due to high
water table. The digging is very easy (sandy loam), but I need clever
ideas on how to drag the dirt out. I have dug down 8 feet along side the
house and can access it with my small tractor/loader. I need ideas of
how to pull/push/drag/roll etc. all of this dirt over to the edge of the
house and drop it down to my waiting tractor. Wife can help a little so
maybe roller conveyers with ropes so I can send her a load and pull my
pan back to where I am digging? Maybe throw the slough on a tarp and
winch it out?


After the first week, you'll curse yourself- this is a massive amount of
hand labor. Do you have a good engineering design for the new foundation? If
the dirt is that soft, you'll have to hold back from the existing walls a
couple of feet to keep existing foundation from collapsing.

Proper approach to this project would have been to jack the house, even just
a little bit, and support it on needle beams and external cribbing. Then you
could put in a proper foundation footer system and 42" crawl, or even a real
raised basement with proper drains to handle high water table. If your
8-foot-deep access pit isn't holding 4 feet of water in the spring thaw,
water table problem might not be bad as you think.

Bottom line- you need a qualified engineer to do a site survey. If you just
seat-of-pants it, you could easily end up with a worthless house.

aem sends....